


The Chance to Protect

by Afoolforatook



Series: An Anthology of Affection [14]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief, M/M, No Beta, Vent?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25196380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Afoolforatook/pseuds/Afoolforatook
Summary: The wish to protect the ones you love.The fear that you might not be able to.The little moments when you can are what keep you going.----------Part 14Saw a post of kissing prompts. Liked a bunch of them. Decided to give myself a daily challenge to get myself actually publishing things while I work on bigger projects.One prompt a day. Under 1500 words (or close to it).
Relationships: Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi
Series: An Anthology of Affection [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805008
Comments: 16
Kudos: 40





	The Chance to Protect

**Author's Note:**

> This will probs get a big rewrite/edit. Yeah... just angsty... Someone give me a Kuzco gif cause something just threw off my groove out of nowhere...

Prompt 14 - A kiss so desperate that the two wind around each other, refusing to let go until they are finished.

The Chance to Protect

____________

Their moments together were a sacred thing. 

They were not each patrons kneeling at the other's altar. They were a fateful cosmic communion: two lone entities strengthening the other. A conversation of prayer and dedication that had no hierarchy of power or devotion. They were on equal footing. Each giving of themselves to the other not out of obligation or debt but open raw autonomy. They were two complete helices of life that - despite all the fear and pain and uncertainty the world had hoisted on their shoulders - decided every morning to entangle their complexities with the other; out of nothing less than true, flawed, terrifying, reviving, malleable, unending love.

And after close calls, after long missions, after hard days, after awful nights. they clung to each other simply because they could. And they knew better than to ever take that for granted. 

Sometimes it was a passionate, frantic clinging. Hot kisses and shaking embraces. Sometimes they met like it was the last chance they had; everything action as desperate as anything else, because there were too many things they couldn’t miss. There were too many pieces of this thing that they were together to try to understand and memorize before it was too late. Before they ran out of time.

But sometimes it was innocent. Slow and steady. It was curling around the other to ensure that he was breathing, and to pray that the guiding pace of his breath could subdue the racing panic of their own. 

It was one of those nights. Qrow had yet to come back from a mission for Ironwood. A mission that required wings. He’d been gone for days but that was expected. 

Finally, Clover heard the buzz of a message on his scroll. He rolled over groaning. It was the middle of the night and he never slept well when Qrow was gone like this. 

All tiredness disappeared as he saw the familiar red eyes looking at him from Qrow’s contact picture. 

“Let me in in a few minutes.” the message read. 

Clover jumped up, rushing to pull on clothes. He quickly replied. 

“I’ll be at the front entrance in just a minute.” 

He was about to open his door when a new message came. 

“Not the door. Your window.” 

He couldn’t help but chuckle as he walked over, unlatching the window and letting the pane swing open. He walked back and sat on the bed to wait. Qrow would’ve had to transform after he finished texting him, so it would likely be a few minutes more. 

Clover waited, not patient in the slightest. 

Until finally he saw a black speck against the sky, quickly growing closer. 

Qrow’s small feathered form had barely made it through the window before he shifted, long limbs materializing instantly. 

Clover jumped up, ready to catch the obviously exhausted man. But Qrow found his footing and before Clover could speak the older huntsman was pulling him close, wrapping his arms around him tightly, as if trying to shroud him from the rest of the world. 

“Gods, Qrow! Are y-” Clover froze as he felt a sob tear through his partner, the lithe frame shaking against him. 

“Oh, honey.” He breathed, slipped his hands up the other man’s back, rubbing soothing circles. 

“What happened? Are you okay?” 

Qrow just tightened his grip, taking a shuttering breath to speak.

“Can we just go to bed? I-I’m… I’m so tired, Cloves.” 

Clover’s heart ached as he nodded into Qrow’s shoulder. 

“Of course. Do You want to change first, take a shower?” He could feel the tension, the utter exhaustion in his form. 

Qrow shook his head, grip still tight around Clover’s waist. 

“Okay...Okay, sweet bird. It’s okay. Come on.” He said softly, starting to try to pull from Qrow’s embrace and lead him back to the bed. 

But Qrow refused to let go. When he spoke, the pain in his voice broke Clover’s heart. 

“Please… I just… I just need to hold you. Clover… I just…” another sob and Clover could tell his legs were shaky, ready to give out at any moment. 

He wrapped an arm around Qrow and slowly led them backward, reaching his free hand back to try to carefully lower them onto the bed. It was clumsier than he’d intended but it worked. He pulled them up further onto the bed and lay them down, moving difficult as Qrow never loosened his grip. 

Clover ran a hand gently through Qrow’s hair, shushing sweetly as the man curled around him, breath coming in heavy rattles. 

After a while, Qrow pulled back, only enough to look Clover in the eye. 

The guilt, the fear, the grief there devastated Clover. 

Qrow let out a broken gasp of a sob before rushing forward, kissing Clover fiercely, lips parting as a new wave of tears washed over him. 

“I’m sorry.” Feeble and angry and pitifully drained. 

Clover tensed at the two tiny words. 

“Oh, Qrow. Why? Why are you sorry?” 

Qrow kissed him, tears streaking his face. 

The response was almost too quiet for Clover to catch but it ricocheted in his head. 

“I love you.”

It shattered Clover. He wanted to stop him, he wanted to force every awful thought from his head. But he knew him. He knew bad nights. He knew that what Qrow needed right then wasn’t to hear he was wrong. He couldn’t hear it right then. What he needed was this. 

Clover turned, rolling over, curling his back against Qrow’s chest, letting him envelop the younger man in his embrace, as he buried his face in his neck, arms wrapped around his waist. Clover just laid there, rubbing his arms gently, holding Qrow together by letting himself be held. 

He didn’t speak. He knew anything he said, no matter how comforting and sincere, would only fuel the grief that Qrow was trying to keep from drowning in. As painful as it was to watch, it was good. This was something that had to get out. Not something conquered by logic or kind words of encouragement. 

He needed to simply wrap around him. He needed to shelter Clover from every bad thing that loomed beyond that room. He needed Clover, curled against his chest, to hold him together. He needed to know, if only for those few sacred moments, that he could protect him. 

They were a Mobius strip. Each wrapping around the other. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeahhhhhhh this one didn't want to work at all and tbh just became more of a stream of consciousness vent... But... still something so !!
> 
> Also like, absolutely no clue what happened to upset Qrow so much....
> 
> \-----------  
> There were 50 prompts originally, but I've already thought of a few more. Also had multiple ideas for a few, which is why some might be listed as chapter 1, with a future version of the prompt coming later.
> 
> Might not end up sticking strictly to the daily thing, but I'll do my best. Either way, here's an ongoing series of little moments.
> 
> Original prompt list - https://kashimalin-fanfiction.tumblr.com/post/178524845380/50-types-of-kisses-writing-prompts
> 
> Might edit here and there later, but the goal here was to just finish something, even if it's not perfectly polished.


End file.
